The line chart illustrates how many users of five communication services worldwide between 1998 and 2008.
Overall, there was a significant rise in the number of people using worldwide services to communicate in all 5 categories examined, with the most drastic rise being seen in the figure for cellular phone service. Additionally, landline service was initially the most common service, but it was surpassed by cellular phone service from 2002 onwards.
Landline service started at around 15 million users, after which it experienced a slight rise to nearly 20 million during the next twenty years, despite a small fall between 2006 and 2008. The similar changes can be observed in the figure for Fixed broadband and Mobile broadband, which both were used in 2004 with a small number of users.
Fewer than 5 million of the population in 1998 opted for the internet as their way to communicate, followed by a significant increase to 10 within 6 years and grew constantly by approximately 11% over the last decade. Meanwhile, the figure for Cellular phones witnessed the most rapid growth from roughly 5 million users in the starting year, overtaking the landline to become the most widespread form of communication in the next six years, before reaching its peak with about 65 million people in use by the end of the period.